One Ring to rule them all - Or not?
by Wingsister Miri
Summary: The Dark Lord Sauron has just completed his Master Ring of Power. But what is he to do when a man shows up opposing him who can control metal?


One Ring to rule them all,  
One Ring to find them.  
One ring to bring them all  
and in the darkness bind them.  
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

The dark lord Sauron was triumphant. He had fooled the great leaders of the Elves, the Dwarves and the Men into eagerly accepting his Rings of Power, then forged the Master Ring to control them all. Soon, they would fall to the seductive whispers of their Rings and be under his complete control at last.

Then he would rule the entirety of the known world!

"Hello there!" said a voice behind him. The Dark Lord whirled around, ready to brutally strike down whoever had dared interrupt him in his moment of victory.

He saw two men, one sitting in a kind of rolling chair, both looking very out of place in their strange clothing, wearing no armour at all, and looking entirely too at ease in the presence of Sauron himself.

"My name is Charles Xavier," continued the man sitting in the chair, "and this is my associate, Erik Lensherr. We have come to prevent you from enacting your plan and imposing your will on these people."

"AND HOW DO YOU PROPOSE TO STOP ME?" roared the Dark Lord, his rage so terrible to behold and so far-reaching that Orcs were skittering and scrambling out of Barad-Dûr in panic. "DIE!"

"Thus." answered the standing man, Erik Lensherr, calmly. He raised his hand, stretching it out towards Sauron. Then he slowly closed his fist, and Sauron felt his One Ring wriggle traitorously for a moment before it slipped off his armoured glove and shot towards Lensherr.

The old man caught it deftly in his right and slipped it on his left ring finger.

To the Dark Lord's great surprise, he remained entirely visible. Only then did he notice that he could not feel the Ring searching for him, calling to him. It had entirely broken free from his control!

Charles Xavier smiled serenely at the Dark Lord. "Try to reform yourself. It is never too late for redemption." His chair turned around, starting to glide towards the egress. His companion turned on his heel, following him.

The Dark Lord was left alone in his sanctuary. In a fit of blinding white-hot rage he destroyed the entire level of the tower he was in, wrecking furniture and blasting walls out into the wide open space beyond the tower windows. As he raged, he vowed to take swift and brutal revenge on the men who had stolen his Master Ring and destroyed his plans.

And so, in secret, the Dark Lord forged another ring, one that would rule the three Rings of the Elves, the seven Rings of the Dwarves, the nine Rings of Men and even the One Ring itself. He infused it with all his knowledge, the experience of millennia, his arts, his cunning and his evil; so that the Ring turned so dark and so strong that nobody would dare stand against its creator and wielder.

Somebody cleared their throat behind him diffidently.

"Hello," he heard the hated voice of Charles Xavier. "We have come back to take this Ring also. Will you not give it up peacefully and return to the side of good?"

The Dark Lord swung his mace, ready to crush the intruders like gnats.

In the aftermath, Charles and Erik left Barad-Dûr, now with two rings glittering on Erik's hands.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" they heard the Dark Lord roar behind them. They simply continued on their way, calmly conversing about the companions they were about to return to.

The Dark Lord continued to make Rings of Power, ever more powerful, but whenever he had finished his work, the two men inexplicably entered his current sanctuary and stole the ring, changing its allegiance, never receiving so much as a scratch from the weapons Sauron attacked them with, nor showing a twinge of fear or discomfort from his mind-magics.

"You know, these are getting kind of heavy," said Erik, pointing out his glittery be-ringed fingers to Charles. By now, he was wearing at least four rings on every finger and could barely move them anymore. "I may have to start wearing some of these as toe-rings."

The friends laughed together, Erik steadying himself on the back of Charles' wheelchair.

"And you still have no symptoms from wearing all these powerful rings?" asked the latter.

"None at all," answered Erik sincerely.

And yet, Sauron kept forging ever more powerful rings, only to have them taken from him immediately.

Charles and Erik were hosted at Imladris and held in high honours. They were feasted whenever they retrieved another Ring of Power and thanked for keeping the peace. However, Lord Elrond, their host, told them that if Sauron ever managed to find a way to gain power that they could not easily take from him, they would have to let the free peoples of Middle-Earth fight for their own fate. He could not let strangers from far away risk their lives for a struggle that was not theirs.

Erik and Charles agreed, although reluctantly, for they had found great friends there. Erik got on especially well with the Dwarves, for he shared their love of metal, though he also took an inexplicable liking to the Hobbits and their peaceful way of life, full of good food and excellent pipe-weed. For some reason, they thought he must be a wizard.

Thus time went on and Sauron went looking for other means of gaining power.

He accelerated the Orc-breeding programs to increase the size of his armies and had them working incessantly to fortify Mordor and train at arms.

He was also searching for other materials to make Rings of Power with, for he had realised that the weakness of the other Rings had been that they were all made of different metals.

He did not have much luck. Wood burned when it touched his super-heated skin, stone was not malleable enough and water did not retain either a solid shape or magic well. He searched all the lands, sometimes leaving Barad-Dûr for long stretches of time, secure in the knowledge that the Orcs would keep working hard in his absence for fear of his wrath on his return.

Finally, he found it: a material that could be melted, shaped into a ring, made heat-resistant and that would not degrade for many eons: Plastic.

In secret he forged this one last Master Ring, stronger than all he had made before. It contained his fury, his malice, and his will for brutal revenge.

One Ring to rule them all.

When Lensherr again tried to summon this One Ring to him, it would not budge, for it was not made of metal and would not obey him.

With a wave of his hand, the Dark Lord Sauron banished Erik Lensherr and Charles Xavier, who had foiled his plans for so long, back to wherever they had come from.

Then he turned his will to the conquest of the free lands of Middle-Earth. They fell before him easily, and only in the most desperate moment was an alliance formed between the free Men, Elves and Dwarves.

They narrowly defeated Sauron, though at high cost. Isildur, the young new king, now had the chance to destroy the One Ring once and for all in the fires of Mount Doom. But he was tempted, and claimed the Plastic Ring for his own. In time, it betrayed him, and was left on the bottom of an innocuous river.

Now, it is ready for a new bearer...


End file.
